Worldwide, prostate cancer is the fourth most prevalent cancer in men. In North America and Northern Europe, it is by far the most common cancer in males and is the second leading cause of cancer death in men. In the United States alone, well over 30,000 men die annually of this disease—second only to lung cancer. Despite the magnitude of these figures, there is still no effective treatment for metastatic prostate cancer. Surgical prostatectomy, radiation therapy, hormone ablation therapy, surgical castration and chemotherapy continue to be the main treatment modalities. Unfortunately, these treatments are ineffective for many and are often associated with undesirable consequences.
Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is an autoimmune disease that can affect many different tissues. The diagnosis and assessment of this disease relics primarily on clinical findings including the scoring of manifestations according to the SLE disease activity index (SLEDAI). Aside from the presence of an array of clinical symptoms, the only widely used biological assay to diagnose lupus involves detecting auto-antibodies to nuclear components of cells such as to dsDNA and ribonucleoproteins, which is not completely reliable. Type 1 insulin dependent diabetes mellitus is a chronic metabolic syndrome with an autoimmune component. Current diagnostic methods are based primarily on the detection of hyperglycemia and related conditions which develop as a result of significant damage to beta islet cells. There is a need in the art for new approaches to the diagnosis and assessment of autoimmune diseases such as SLE and type 1 insulin dependent diabetes mellitus.